NASA announced on Wednesday the selection of the Lucy and Psyche missions as the agency’s the agency next Discovery missions placing full focus on the study of asteroids as windows into the earliest eras of our Solar System. The two missions are aiming for launch in 2021 and 2023 with Lucy homing in on Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids while Psyche will visit a giant metallic asteroid.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft brushed past Jupiter on Sunday, marking the mission’s first operational science pass with seven of the craft’s instruments active as the probe zipped past the Gas Giant at a speed over 200,000 Kilometers per hour.

The European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter successfully completed a pair of science checkout orbits around Mars and delivered a first glimpse of the scientific results to be expected from the orbiter’s instrument suite once reaching a low orbit around the planet in late 2017.

A one-second glitch led to a 3.7-Kilometer free fall for the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli lander that crashed on Mars back on October 19 when attempting an experimental parachute-and-rocket-assisted landing on the red planet to pave the way for the ExoMars 2020 mission that aims to dispatch a rover to the Martian surface.

A navigation software miscommunication appears to have played a central role in last week’s Schiaparelli crash landing on the surface of Mars, initial analysis of data recorded during the lander’s descent reveals.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been recovered from an unplanned Safe Mode and is entering preparations for a December 11 flyby of Jupiter while teams continue studying a pair of technical issues on the spacecraft while it continues orbiting the Gas Giant in a highly elongated orbit.

A 500-million Kilometer journey came to a dramatic end this week when the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli lander crashed into the surface of Mars at over 300 Kilometers per hour after suffering an as yet unknown failure in the final stages of its descent.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft – currently in a highly elongated orbit around Gas Giant Jupiter – unexpectedly entered safe mode on Wednesday preventing its scientific instruments from capturing data when the spacecraft made its second close orbital brush past the planet

ESA’s ExoMars 2016 mission reached a dramatic culmination on Wednesday when the Trace Gas Orbiter successfully inserted itself into orbit around Mars while the Schiaparelli lander attempted a daring landing maneuver to become Europe’s first craft to achieve the feat of landing on Mars.

Instead of spiraling down into a two-week science orbit around Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft will have to remain in a highly elliptical orbit for at least one more lap around the gaseous world due to a suspect signature seen in the preparatory steps for the critical main engine burn originally planned for next week.

The ExoMars 2016 spacecraft is on the final approach to its arrival at Mars after conducting a final adjustment to its flight path to set the stage for Sunday’s planned separation of the Schiaparelli lander from the Trace Gas Orbiter ahead of the big day on Wednesday.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Spacecraft, already sixteen million Kilometers from Earth, so far has passed all core systems checks as it settles in for a long mission to link up with and return a sample from Asteroid Bennu.

ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft found its final resting place on the surface of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Friday, capping an eight-billion-Kilometer, twelve-and-a-half-year journey to study the origins of the Solar System and life on Earth.

More than 700 million Kilometers from Earth, in the dark regions of our Solar System, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft placed itself on a collision course with comet 67P to put the exclamation mark behind a remarkable mission of discovery, beginning to unlock the secrets from a distant past.